Inventory theft, often referred to as “shrinkage,” is a major problem for manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers. In addition to losses from shoplifting, supply chain theft has increasingly become a major source of loss. Combating supply chain theft is very difficult because the theft often occurs during shipping or while merchandise is in storage, when the merchandise is accessible to thieves and when the theft cannot be easily detected. It is also difficult and expensive to conduct inventory checks of merchandise at enough points in the supply chain to identify when and where a theft is happening in order to build a case for prosecution.
RFID systems are intended to help manufacturers, wholesalers and retailers combat supply chain theft by rendering the merchandise inventory process less expensive. By employing RFID tags on pallets or cases of merchandise during storage or transit, theft of entire pallets or cases of merchandise may be detected. By using item level RFID tags, theft of individual packages of merchandise can be detected. Passive RFID tags can only be used for checking inventory at various points in the supply chain.
Currently, active RFID tags may include integrated sensors that can be used to monitor the vibration or environmental conditions of merchandise. With this information, monitoring systems can determine if merchandise has been subjected to shock, vibration or other extreme environmental conditions that may damage the merchandise. By time-stamping any alert or alarm conditions triggered by these sensors, law enforcement authorities or other authorized persons may determine when damage occurs. However, these sensors cannot be used to determine when a theft has occurred because the relevant information is actually stored on the RFID tag. Thus, when the merchandise is stolen, its active RFID tag, including all the stored information, is gone.
Therefore, what is needed is a system capable of collecting and saving information about merchandise such that the stored information may be retrieved even when individual asset tags are stolen or removed from the merchandise.